Laila Soueif, Egyptian mathematician and the mother of jailed political activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, has begun a one-hour daily sit-in outside the UK prime minister's office in London. She is calling on the British government to press for her son’s release from prison in Cairo.
The sit-in, announced on Facebook by her daughter Mona Seif, marks an escalation in Laila ongoing campaign to secure the release of her son, who completed a five-year prison sentence on September 28 but remains in detention.
Born on May 1, 1956, Laila holds both British and Egyptian citizenship. Her son Alaa acquired British nationality in 2021 through descent, following repeated applications by the family in hopes that international pressure might help secure his release..
Speaking to Al Manassa before her departure for London, Laila said she intended to resume a full hunger strike upon her return to the city. She had shifted to a partial strike in March after 156 days of fasting, which led to her hospitalization at St. Thomas' Hospital in London in February.
From prison, Alaa also went on hunger strike in March after learning of his mother’s deteriorating health due to her prolonged fast.
On Thursday, lawyers Khaled Ali and Mohamed Fathy, representing Laila, submitted two new petitions to Egypt’s public prosecutor seeking Alaa’s release on the grounds that he has already served the full five-year term for which he was convicted.
Simultaneously, Laila's other daughter, Sanaa, and leader of the Constitution Party Gameela Ismail delivered a separate petition to the presidential palace in Cairo, requesting a presidential pardon. Laila wrote on Facebook that this was the second pardon request submitted on her son's behalf, following an earlier one filed in December by Sanaa and Mona.
In a post, lawyer Khaled Ali explained that the first petition, filed under case number 276/2025 International Cooperation, urged authorities to count the time Alaa spent in pretrial detention towards his sentence. The second, case number 277/2025, argued that his sentence has been fully served, and any further detention is unlawful.
Ali wrote, “We submitted both petitions to offer the prosecutor two legal routes: either deduct pretrial detention from the sentence, or refer the case to the relevant court to challenge the sentence’s enforcement.”
Alaa remains in legal limbo due to the state’s refusal to credit more than two years of pretrial detention toward his prison sentence. Although arrested in September 2019, authorities count his term from January 2022, leaving him imprisoned despite having served his time, according to his lawyer Khaled Ali.
Article 482 of Egypt’s Criminal Procedure Code states that a custodial sentence begins on the day of arrest if the defendant remains in detention, with the total sentence reduced by the duration of pretrial detention and time spent in custody. Under the article, if multiple prison sentences are handed down, pretrial detention should be deducted from the lighter sentence first.
